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Did Janet Napolitano just deputize every frequent flyer? Because if in-flight passengers are now part of the "system," I want to know where to pick up my gun and badge. If it had not been for the self-preservation instincts of a few brave folks, plus the would-be bomber's own incompetence, Napolitano would be walking through collected wreckage in a warehouse today, and airport Sheratons around the country would have grounded holiday travelers sleeping in the hallways.

As for Iran, my only thought is that the President thinks objecting to Tehran's suppression will actually strengthen the hand of the regime. He might have a point. Still, the relative silence is also in keeping with an uglier side of the emerging Obama Doctrine (as recently espoused by Secretary of State Clinton), which is to put democracy and free speech somewhere at the lower end of the hierarchy of human needs compared to where other presidents have placed them in this half century. As long as you've got universal health care for your citizens, you can't possibly be a bad government. Perhaps that's why the authoritarian rulers of the world feel freer to suppress their own citizens and cause regional chaos than they have in years.

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